


violet hearts and violent eyes

by kyvtae



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: How Do I Tag, Lee Taeyong-centric, M/M, Not Beta Read, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, doyoung is (unfortunately) straight, i can't write romance but i can write Gay Struggles, takes place around the superm debut in los angeles, this started as a character study and turned into a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26274946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyvtae/pseuds/kyvtae
Summary: Purple used to be a pretty color, but now that Taeyong saw it every time he looked in the mirror, and every time he forgot to use the color-safe shampoo in the shower, and every time he toweled down after swimming laps in the hotel pool, he wasn’t so sure that it was the color for him. It was one Kim Dongyoung's favorite color after all, and Taeyong would prefer to forget that fact.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	violet hearts and violent eyes

**Author's Note:**

> this is so short but it started out as a character study and turned into a whole fic lol
> 
> in case you didn't see the tags: it takes place during superm's debut in la (early october 2019)

Purple used to be a pretty color, but now that Taeyong saw it every time he looked in the mirror, and every time he forgot to use the color-safe shampoo in the shower, and every time he toweled down after swimming laps in the hotel pool, he wasn’t so sure that it was the color for him.

Purple was the color of the skies at night when Jaehyun went out with his friends to play basketball or get drinks and tried to walk back to the dorm himself but eventually ended up lost in some back alley in the middle of Hongdae with Yugyeom while Taeyong, Johnny, and their manager Donghyun drove over to find him.

Purple was the color of the flowers Taeil’s florist grandmother sent the group on their debut anniversary that year: allium for unity, sweet pea for good fortune, and lisianthus for rising above their peers (though when everyone read the card that came along with the flowers explaining their meanings, Yuta firmly denied that last one).

Purple was the color of the colored lenses Donghyuck tried to wear for their Chain music video shooting that never quite fit right, relying on his makeup artist to take them out of his eyes with a tiny plunger and a bucketload of contact solution before Taeyong had not so kindly asked the head stylist to have him go without.

Purple was the color of Mark’s set of guitar picks, a Christmas gift sent to him back when he was a trainee by Jeremy, his neighbor from Canada who had begged Taeyong in broken Korean over Mark’s phone to send him the dorm’s shipping address once he found out his friend was going to be a musician.

Purple was the color of the small room at the end of the hallway in their dorm, the one that used to be Sicheng’s before he moved in with WayV and still smelled like the limited edition osmanthus-scented candles he used to light every morning when he woke up and extinguish every night when he went to bed.

Purple was the color of the matching fleece sweatshirts Jungwoo had designed on a website and then bought everyone back when they were still promoting as NCT 2018, commemorating the year with all of their names on the back and the NCT logo on the front, over the heart because they would always be connected even after they eventually disbanded.

Purple was the color of many things. But most importantly, it was the color of Kim Dongyoung.

Doyoung liked purple. He asked their stylists to dye his hair lavender back when they were still performing Cherry Bomb, but in order to avoid bleaching his hair again (Taeyong was always bleaching his hair, so why did Doyoung get to keep his scalp healthy?) the hairdresser made it a deeper, almost silvery shade. It wasn’t that Taeyong was paying close attention to it or anything, but he missed the color on him. It was pretty.

He was pretty.

Taeyong needed to stop thinking about Doyoung: stop thinking about the sparkles in his eyes when he got the adlibs right in their recording sessions (he’d scream in delight before realizing the mic was on, and then apologize to their poor producers while laughing about it for a good ten minutes), stop thinking about the tiny blush on his cheeks when 127 went out for drinks to celebrate his and Mark’s new project (“Congrats, Yongie-hyung!” he’d said, a slight smile on his face and a faint breeze blowing through his hair, the alcohol in his system giving his face a faint glow), and stop thinking about the last time he’d seen him, when Taeyong left him in charge while he went to America to “parade around with Lee Sooman and the company favorites,” as Doyoung had said. God, he missed him.

Taeyong needed to stop thinking about Doyoung, because Taeyong was in love with him. He was in love with a straight boy, because the purple bunny plushies and rainbow hair ties of the present day couldn’t hide the fact that Doyoung used to ask him for “Girl advice” back during their trainee years, or the secret girlfriend who broke up with Doyoung shortly before they recorded for Regular.

Taeyong needed to stop thinking about him, because if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Doyoung would never like him back, no matter how many times they fake-kissed for the fans (Taeyong wishes they were real, but he also knows Doyoung made sure to wipe his mouth discreetly afterwards), or had long, meaningful conversations on the dorm rooftop hours after it had gotten dark, or even checked over each other’s lyrics ten minutes before their meetings with their producers to make sure all the metaphors made sense and the rhyme scheme matched up. Doyoung would never like him back, and that was okay. It had to be okay.

But why, then, did Taeyong’s heart ache whenever he pulled up the group chatroom on Discord (Mark had insisted it was easier to use, but Taeyong never got the hang of it) and saw user kimdoyoungie#4897, status: offline?

Why, then, did Taeyong hear an excited scream or yell during last Tuesday's dance practice for SuperM’s Jopping and turn around, expecting it to be Doyoung and forgetting that he wasn’t there?

Why, then, did Taeyong search his symptoms on Naver one particularly rough day (chest pain, exhaustion, headaches, and general sadness) and find broken heart syndrome among the possible diagnoses?

If it was okay, then why?

It had to be okay, and it would, because while Doyoung would never love him back, they could still talk on the phone while they were separated by miles and miles of ocean and Taeyong felt homesick but refused to tell anyone in SuperM (they didn’t need to stop promotions because of him, not when more than half their members were living in a different country to begin with).

They could still laugh together on warm summer days with ice pops matching their bright-colored hair dripping onto the designer pants the stylist teams were going to yell at them later for staining.

They could still watch movies together, playfully arguing about which characters would represent each other (Doyoung would be a Pokémon villain if he was in an anime, Taeyong was sure of it!) if they were in that universe.

They could still be friends, best friends forever, as the saying went.

Purple was the color of Kim Dongyoung. But most importantly, it was the color of heartbreak, of loss, and ultimately: of acceptance.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first (published) fic for nct so i hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> i'm [koaamel](https://twitter.com/koaamel) on twt if you want to talk/beta/etc.
> 
> love y'all ♡


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